April 9, 2001

The Honorable Virginia Strom-Martin
Assembly Education Committee
1020 N Street, Room 159
Sacramento, CA 95814

SUPPORT: AB 927 (Goldberg)

Dear Assembly Member Strom-Martin:

On behalf of the California Continuation Education Association (CCEA), I am writing to express our strong support for AB 927 (Goldberg), which is scheduled for consideration by the Assembly Education Committee on April 18^th.

Continuation high schools are the primary safety net for students at risk of dropping out of high school and serve students who are typically between 16 and 19 years of age. Students who attend continuation high schools primarily have had attendance problems, difficulties with substance abuse, family obligations, or are pregnant or a teen parent. Continuation high schools typically do not serve students who have had severe behavioral or discipline problems. Many students in continuation high schools are far behind in their academic credits, but most are eager for an opportunity to earn a diploma.

The current funding formula for continuation high schools has not been significantly modified in over 20 years. As a result of two decades of neglect, California now has a funding system which provides some school districts with as little as $60 in additional funding per continuation high school ADA, while others receive in excess of $3,000 per ADA. One extreme case has a district receiving over $100,000 per continuation high school ADA. These inequities have lead to a substantial reduction in quality of some continuation high schools in the state.

AB 927 would address this disparity in a significant way. Specifically, the bill would provide funding to school districts which are currently receiving less than $1,500 per continuation high school ADA. In exchange for this additional funding, the school districts must certify that they will implement a quality continuation high school program. At a minimum, this must include:

• Class sizes with an average of 20 to 1.
• Offering students a minimum of six hours per day of classroom instruction.
• Maintaining a student to counselor ratio no larger than 300 to 1.

In short, AB 927 addresses the glaring inequities in California’s current continuation high school funding system, while creating strong incentives for school districts to offer quality programs to some of our students who are most at risk of failure. We believe this legislation is particularly important as California moves towards full implementation of the high school exit exam.

Please contact me if I can provide any additional information regarding this important legislation.

Sincerely,

 

Peter Birdsall

cc:
Members, Assembly Education Committee
Assembly Member Jackie Goldberg
Adonai Mack, Office of the Secretary for Education
Janet Knoeppel, CCEA President